June 13
2012

How The Avengers Director's Cut rumour came to be.
There's reports all over the place that a Director's Cut of The Avengers will be released in the cinema in August. This actually started off as mere speculation at ComicBook.com three days ago. It got picked up elsewhere as a "rumour" and things got out of hand accordingly. It led to the slightly ludicrous situation where a Hollywood "source" is reported as saying that they had heard the rumour too. This, of course, was seen in some quarters that the rumour was true and now more column inches are being devoted to the story.

Long-time readers will remember the same sort of thing happened with reports that Priyanka Chopra was going to be Wonder Woman.

On that kind of note, were there any scenes that you shot that you ended up having to cut due to story and pacing, but really wanted to keep in?

Yeah, the first cut was quite long. And you'll see in the DVD extras there was times when I really wanted to spend time with some of the ancillary characters, who are more human to sort of give context to everything that's happening. But, ultimately, fans were like, "Yeah, what we'd like to see is THE AVENGERS, SO WHY DON'T YOU JUST SHOW THAT INSTEAD?" [laughs] And so there's a lot of good work on the floor, but there isn't anything on the floor that I feel we gutted the movie.

So this is the director's cut.

Yes. You know what, and someday this may bite me and I may not be able to accomplish it, but it is always my intent to put the director's cut in theaters. I don't like to have different versions of a story, it kind of tweaks me. I like to know this is the story, this is it.

I still hope there is some truth to the rumour, or at least that Marvel people are considering it. The film felt a little light in the themes department compared to Joss' previous work and there was some other stuff that didn't make much sense to me even after a few viewings, so I assumed they had cut more scenes than they should have to make the runtime more theatre-friendly. I could be (and usually am) spectacularly wrong, but any headline that mentions the director's cut will have me eating right out of its hand. And it would be great to see the longer cut on the big screen anyway, so I hope this isn't the last time we hear this rumour.

and thinking it means there's a director's cut they haven't seen that will one day be released in theaters, when what Joss is really saying is that the one that originally gets released is the director's cut.

This is why instruction in reading informational text is so important!

So the whole thing about us getting 40 mins of extra footage was all a myth? :(

For all I know an extended version is planned, but this current story that's doing the rounds is factually incorrect. And the extra footage will be on the DVD.
Also how easy would it be for Disney to get The Avengers back into the cinemas at such short notice?

Throw enough money at a problem and it will go away. It's more likely to be a more fundamental issue though than getting cinema slots as the film's a proven moneyspinner. How many of the cut scenes had completed effects shots, would additional score needed to be composed/recorded, dialogue looped etc, that kind of thing. The LOTR extended editions came out a year after the theatrical releases and six months after the bare bones DVD release, partly for those reasons and partly, I am sure, so they could double dip.

So will we ever get to see the stuff Whedon cut out of the movie? Well, possibly as deleted scenes, but not as part of a director’s cut…

“I believe very strongly in putting the director’s cut into the theatres,” says Whedon. “I believe that the director’s cut is the best movie for the studio and the best version of the movie for the audience. I’ve never really been in a situation where I had to pull the beating heart out of something that I did.”

Y'know, normally it isn't the case, but Marvel/Disney could probably break off another $100 mill, maybe more, this fall by doing exactly that, telling Joss to cut the movie back together the way he had first put it, finishing any post-production, and dropping into the "Avatar"/"Titanic" release window as "Marvel's The Avengers: Extended Edition". Jack is right about the normal timetable for such things, but most movies also don't make $600 million in the US. Go get it before people forget.

If they were going to do something like this, I think they should wait until The Avengers sequel is ready. Then build anticipation for the sequel by releasing the "extended edition" leading up to, and then coupled in midnight showings with, the sequel. I mean, the first one is still raking in the dollars here, and hasn't even opened in Japan yet globally. Whether or not they would actually do the re-release, I think later is better timing.

Yeah, it's crazy how it apparently started with ComicBook.com's article, which wasn't even a rumor, it was a 'Hey Disney, this is how you can climb those extra ranking spots.' It would be a smart move by Disney, but if they did think about it, I really really hope it wouldn't be against Joss' wishes (though it probably would). I definitely think it would be better to call it extended cut. Extended Cut != Director's Cut, and clearly this director believes the theatrical release is the director's cut...